


Song of the City: the Darbel fragment

by Kass



Series: Stargate Atlantis fanworks [44]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Other, Poetry, Victorsverse, Written By The Victors, rashelka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-26
Updated: 2008-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:12:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kass/pseuds/Kass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When the first footfalls woke the sleeping city of Atlantis..."</p><p>First quatrain written for the epilogue of Speranza's Written by the Victors; expanded into a larger poem, with commentary, in the upswell of fannish creativity that followed that story's release.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Song of the City: the Darbel fragment

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Written by the Victors](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15) by [Speranza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Speranza/pseuds/Speranza). 



# Song of the City: The Darbel Fragment

1 When the first footfalls woke the sleeping city of Atlantis

And voices rang again across the city of Atlantis

The waters had not parted, the ocean floor seemed solid

But memories awoke again in the city of Atlantis.

 

5  In birds of prey her sons had been harvested.

When screaming came across the sky

From world to world wrenched wailing rose.

Parents wept, torn from their children.

The fires of war came even to Atlantis:

10 Bitter the fateful day when first

The enemy broached the city's horizon!

Her shield held firm, but her children feared.

Their home descended to fathom the deeps

As they sailed away to unknown stars.

15 Atlantis slept through dark centuries

Alone and empty, yearning to be known.

 

The city knew her children and thrilled to hear their voices

Her feasting hall, long-empty, rang and echoed with their voices

Although their songs were foreign, their dances untranslated

20  The city came alive again awakened by their voices.

 

Upon the waters of the sea

Atlantis rose again. At last

The shafts of dawn could kiss and touch

The burnished tiles of her halls

25  And sunset's cloak could settle 'round

Her piers and spires, her corridors.

I sing the song the city sings:

Rejoice, these halls are filled again!

The barren woman, once bereft

30    Is mother now. All Pegasus

Will gather at her feet, will know

The safety of her golden shield.

 

When the soul-eaters woke and massed their force against the city

Her children fought with all their hearts to save their shining city

35She broke her moorings, straining to unleash her sustained fury—

And jubilation swept the teeming courtyards of the city [...]

 

—Rashelka

* * *

Editor's note:

The Darbel fragment, found on the Rena homeworld, contains only the first 36 lines of the epic Song of the City, attributed to the praise-poet Rashelka. It differs in several minor ways from the accepted editions of the poem which are common across the Pegasus galaxy.

The notable difference between this manuscript and the common version is that the Darbel fragment features no punctuation. The punctuation I have chosen is designed to facilitate fluent chanting of the text, according to the Nala liturgical tradition of which my family is a part.

Cantillation aside, it is clear to the astute eye that Song of the City is a patchwork of at least three voices. This assertion is neither heresy, nor intended to soften our faith in the received tradition of our history. I see no dissonance between an understanding of Song of the City as composed by several writers over time, and a heartfelt adherence to the values the poem promotes.

The long lines are the oldest; their pattern of stresses, with unwritten caesurae, matches that of Lantean Waters, attributed to the early liturgical poet Eda. This was almost certainly written on the first homeworld which housed Atlantis. The repeated teleutons add emphasis to critical words ("Atlantis," "voices," "city") and suggest the rhythmic wash of waves.

Lines five through 16 retain four stresses per line, but they are notably briefer. These lines leap back to early Lantean history: the Long War with the Wraith, the Ancestors' departure, and the city's slumber. Here the poem's focus shifts to a more human scale: the sons of Atlantis (and of the worlds the Ancestors had seeded) and their suffering. The poet preserves the alliteration and assonance of the opening lines. Note the onomatopoeia in the plosive sounds of line ten.

The visual prosody of the poem shifts again with lines 21 through 32, which are briefer still. Here the system of stresses begins to break down. In their place, the poet makes use of metrics; these lines scan easily. The iambs are, like the repeated teleutons of the "refrain" verses, an aid to memorization, evidence that this poem was almost certainly recited aloud from the earliest days of its composition.

I follow in the footsteps of my teachers in presuming that this fragment, like the epic as a whole, reveals multiple authorship. But I wish in no way to denigrate the cultural or spiritual importance of the poem.

That many hands may have shaped its form is proof of how beloved this work quickly came to be. Song of the City is at its heart, a collaboration. That many joined together to create and polish it seems only appropriate. May this remind us of our Founders, of how they banded together to forge a galactic civilization none of them could surely have imagined alone.

 

—Rava Masret

&lt;


End file.
